atw: Re: Change of collective noun use - why?
- From: "Chris Newby" <rysk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 07:36:32 +1100
If I were - blame the fiddler on the roof - "If I were a rich man"
-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lee O'Mahoney
Sent: Saturday, 17 March 2012 9:48 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Change of collective noun use - why?
Can someone please explain why collective nouns are increasingly being
treated as plural rather than singular? And how to stop it? :-)
People used to say 'The crowd is yelling loudly', 'the team is working
hard', 'the community is...', 'Telstra is jerking me around', 'Connex has
advised that trains are running late' ie a group of things was treated as a
collective noun and had singular verbs.
Now, most people, even on ABC and BBC radio, say 'The crowd are yelling
loudly', 'the community are...', 'the team are working hard, 'Telstra are
still jerking me around', 'Metro have advised that trains are still running
late'.
Why the change?
While I'm at it, what's with using 'If I were' instead of 'If I was...'?
I've only noticed people doing it recently, but read that 'If I were' is OK
if it's a hypothetical situation.
eg This forum thread http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=50929
If I were controlling the language, I wouldn't want people treating
collective nouns as plural cos it sounds all wrong. Ha.
Lee
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